Where are the Democrats? "It’s urgent Democrats stop squabbling and recognize seven basic truths," says Robert Reich.

(See also: Where are the Democrats? "The Democratic Base Is Marching Right Past Its Leaders")

If you're a Floyd County resident and consider yourself in alignment with the Democratic Party, then please click through and read Reich's seven truths.

Next, consider carefully the recent history of the Floyd County Democratic Party. As currently constituted, do you think the FCDP understands these truths and is capable of doing what's needed (as Reich asks)?

If the answer is yes, the blog is yours. Make the case, explain what the FCDP will be doing, and tell us why these appearances of utter futility are deceptive.

If you feel constrained by lack of skill in writing, don't worry. I'll help you. If you're bashful about speaking openly because the party's leadership tends toward the secretive and hermetic -- well, isn't that a huge part of the problem?

In fact, I'm begging local Democrats -- any or all of them -- to explain this:

ON THE AVENUES: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

There are good people in the FCDP; unfortunately, they've been silent for too long, submerged beneath the vapid corporate surface sheen which continues to amass little more than losses. The FCDP as we know it today functions primarily as Jeff Gahan's fundraising arm -- and with all the funds raised going to Gahan, and none to the party.

If Gahan possessed Barack Obama's intellect and charisma, this might make sense, though carefully mark my words: Gahan may have won two mayoral terms, transforming him into a genius superstar in the eyes of local Democrats, but he's on course to become a tremendous liability.

Local Democrats have been almost swept clean in the county, and there are no natural successors to Gahan in the city, apart from functionaries like Pat McLaughlin and Bob Caesar, for whom wishing simply won't make it so. Now Gahan is striking deals with the likes of Coffey, not because these concessions assist his moribund political party in any coherent way, but in defense of the mayor's own campaign-finance-lockbox-driven indefensible ambitions.

As you know, I don't care a jot about the Democratic Party, although we could use an entity to function as the principled local opposition to state and national madness. If it cannot do even this, then Reich is correct. Let it be swept away, and the sooner the better.

The life of the party — 7 truths for Democrats, by Robert Reich (San Francisco Chronicle)

The ongoing contest between the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic Party continues to divide Democrats. It’s urgent Democrats stop squabbling and recognize seven basic truths ...

7 The party must change from being a giant fundraising machine to a movement. It needs to unite the poor, working class and middle class, black and white — who haven’t had a raise in 30 years and who feel angry, powerless and disenfranchised.

... If the Democratic Party doesn’t understand these seven truths and fails to do what’s needed, a third party will emerge to fill the void.

Third parties usually fail because they tend to draw votes away from the dominant party closest to them, ideologically. But if the Democratic Party creates a large enough void, a third party won’t draw away votes. It will pull people into politics.

And drawing more people into politics is the only hope going forward.

Where are the Democrats? "The Democratic Base Is Marching Right Past Its Leaders."

Newly minted activists want Democrats in Washington to actually fight against Trump — or get out of the way ... a fired-up progressive base is marching far ahead of the party leadership. Democrats are scrambling to keep up ...

That's the Huffington Post; this is somnolent New Albany, where the Floyd County Democratic Party had a pleasant Central Committee meeting on Saturday morning, with piped-in elevator music, a floor show by the Disneyettes and fresh Kroger doughnuts.

However, the theme was slightly misleading.

Stronger? Isn't it true that one first must be strong in order to add the superlative -er? Recalling and paraphrasing the immortal words of Jim Morrison, "They've been down so goddamn long, that it looks like up to them."

Surely they adhered to the traditional niceties, popped a few Diet Cokes, and reaffirmed the doctrine that the same losing tactics, leading inevitably to the same outcome, over and over again, is peachy keen -- and as they met, the tenor of the times was exploding all over the country, suggesting that maybe something different is merited.

Couldn't you feel the raw excitement just looking at the photos? All those energized white-haired folks -- and those were just the YOUNG Democrats.

Okay, not exactly. The Young Democrats met earlier last week, and almost filled a small room. Look at all the progressives ...

We've heard no sounds of marching feet in New Albany, at least yet. However, for the FCDP to continue as Republican Lite may not be the best strategy to mobilize a more vigorous base, as we discuss elsewhere this morning.

The Democratic Base Is Marching Right Past Its Leaders, by Jennifer Bendery and Ryan Grim (Huffington Post)

 ... (Senate confirmation votes) came just days after millions poured into the streets in more than 650 women’s marches on Saturday made it that much more jarring. Those marches, after all, had not been sparked by Planned Parenthood, or the Democratic Party, or unions, or MoveOn.org, even if they did pitch in to help once it got going. Instead, they came from regular, angry people ― people who may try to replace the ones in power ...

... The organizers of the march provided the platform that an angry electorate demanded, but they didn’t dictate what comes next. Yes, they co-hosted the march with well-established, progressive groups in Washington D.C., like Planned Parenthood and the Natural Resources Defense Council. But they didn’t coordinate with those groups to collect attendees’ names and email addresses to keep them engaged in those groups’ fights around reproductive rights or climate change. Instead, the organizers collected contact information for the local organizers themselves, which may wind up being far more powerful than another giant list of progressives.

Strategies and amenities suitable for Redevelopment to ignore.

At urbanscale.com, two collections of strategies and amenities help make the point that even for a city of New Albany's relatively small size, we can leverage our location in metro Louisville to punch higher than our weight.

Assuming, of course, that we read books and think outside self-imposed boxes.

Coming in at Number One on John Karras' hit parade is the strategy we seem determined to get wrong, and probably will continue to botch for so long as John "My Way Means the Highway" Rosenbarger has influence to peddle about it, even as he blames his sad political predicament for the situation. Sorry, John; we're not buying the BS any longer.

Vibrant Downtown Strategy #1

Turn one-way streets into two-way streets.

Why?

One-way streets are great if your only goal is to channel traffic through your downtown, but they are bad for pedestrian activity and retail opportunities. Two-way streets create a more comfortable pedestrian environment and have been shown to increase property values.

There is a good reason that the Main Streets that sit at the urban core of small towns and cities across the U.S. are almost always two-way streets. From Wichita, KS to Charleston, SC, cities across the U.S. are realizing the benefits of two-way streets in their urban cores.

12 Strategies That Will Transform Your City’s Downtown

10 Small Cities With Urban Amenities That Most Big Cities Lack

Core commons principles.

From NAC and some other sources, there are often calls for greater transparency and inclusivity. Certain principles should play big in public decision making and, perhaps more importantly, public ownership. We've seen some improvement in that area but, too often, closed doors and private agendas still overcome us.

On the Commons provides what it calls Nine Core Commons Principals, shared here.

“A commons arises whenever a given community decides that it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with a special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability. It is a social form that has long lived in the shadows of our market culture, but which is now on the rise.” —David Bollier

Principles

    •    Without exception, we all belong to our community, and we each have an equal stake in what happens.

    •    We must recognize and repair the damage that has been done, and the inequities that have been created, by our current, market-based society.

    •    The things that belong to all of us must be named, claimed, defended, protected, and improved. We have a mutual responsibility to take care of these commons and pass them on to the next generation in better shape than we found them.

    •    We must honor our full humanity. We are not merely individuals and consumers—we are neighbors, community members, citizens, and experts on the places we live.

    •    We are surrounded by abundance and opportunity that the market does not recognize or value. We must see and claim this abundance for the benefit of all.

    •    Everyone should have the chance to participate in defining, restoring, creating, managing, leading, governing, and owning anything that is important to the future of the community.

    •    People most affected by critical decisions must be included in the process of making them.

    •    History, cultural distinctiveness and people’s personal stories are important factors in setting goals and making decisions, as well as simply understanding our community.

    •    Sufficiency and resilience are the opposite of the folly of growth.

To create a commons-based society people need more than exposure to new ideas; they need tangible ways of experiencing, practicing and living out these bright possibilities. To ensure the survival of the community and of our common assets, we must create new customs, understandings, systems, and structures.

- See more at: http://www.onthecommons.org/work/nine-core-commons-principles#sthash.Z2ZbcWey.dpuf

Keep 'em guessing.

(96 + 15 = 111 hours)

I'm not being facetious when suggesting it was ingenious to paint New Albany's forks in the road in front of buildings that have nothing to do with food and drink.

Say what?

Well, it is now apparent that at some point after the initial plan was announced, it was decided to add forks to selected local attractions, like the Ritter House and the Farmers Market. How these were selected and by whom is a consideration for another day, but the sly strategy's effectiveness cannot be argued. After all, everyone -- even the oblivious non-participating troglodytes -- is talking about New Albany's street-surface forks, trying to figure out why they're painted in this or that location, and not in another, and what it all means in the end.

Assuming this was the intent, good work.

Horseshoe patron from Louisville takes Spring Street instead, arrives at poker table in same amount of time.

Already the "word on the street" is that Horseshoe will decamp to Jeffersonville with lightning speed if the Sherman Minton closure isn't rectified sooner rather than later. Such rumors, while grounded in a degree of fact (statutorily, Jeffersonville might now host a casino), ignore other facts, namely the ridiculously high cost of relocation as well as the state-mandated process for moving.

Far closer to reality is the closing statement of reporter Hershberg's piece, as attributed to a casino official: "If they choose to gamble, they will come to Horseshoe for an extra 10 minutes drive."

Is it time to begin tolling for the future south(west)end bridge?

Bridge shutdown hurts Horseshoe Casino; Official: Casino business down, by Ben Zion Hershberg (One Formerly Great Louisville Newspaper)

Business at Horseshoe Southern Indiana Casino business was down by double digits last weekend and was slower than usual earlier this week after the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge, an official acknowledged.

But Jonathan Jones, the casino’s vice president of operations, said business was good Wednesday, when buses brought in patrons from the metropolitan area and beyond, and Thursday morning showed continuing signs of progress.

He declined to provide more specific estimates of foot traffic this week but said “we are all very optimistic the business will come back and it will do so quickly.”

Special Merchant Mixer meeting minutes and WLKY video link.

Here are the minutes from this morning's meetings (courtesy of Curt and Pam Peters), as well as the link to WLKY-32's meeting coverage.

Business Owners Staying Positive: Bridge Closure Affecting New Albany Businesses

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NEW ALBANY DOWNTOWN MERCHANTS’ MEETING

Tuesday, September 13, 2011, 8:00 a.m.

Approximately 50 merchants representing downtown New Albany businesses met at the Grand Theater on Market Street for a motivational meeting to share ideas as to how we can work together after the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge.

Many people expressed the idea that the key to our continued success at keeping the current momentum going in downtown New Albany is to remain positive. It is too early to tell what the impact will be for downtown merchants, but we must all begin tracking customers for at least six months so that we have a record of where customers are coming from and when they are coming. Mike Ladd of Urban Enterprise Association plans to get a picture of the economy on the Indiana side of the Ohio River by collecting such information merchants will send him. He will communicate via email the form for merchants to use in collecting the data and will create an excel spreadsheet to tabulate information. In this way we may be able to see what Kentucky brings into our community.

Many of the positive steps we can take are as follows:

• We must put forward new efforts to market Indiana communities such as Clarksville, Jeffersonville, Hamburg, Sellersburg, Georgetown, Corydon and others. This is a great opportunity to reach people who do not know about all the business venues downtown New Albany.

• Think about what other modes of transportation could be developed between southern Indiana communities of New Albany, Clarksville and Jeffersonville and others.

• DNA (Develop New Albany, Inc.) will be putting up billboards prior to Harvest Homecoming to get the word out as to what downtown New Albany has to offer. It was suggested they emphasize a website for further information.

• Re-examine all signage and highlight it.

• Harvest Homecoming should add a major theme “Support New Albany.”

• Do more with joint advertising.

• Merchants need to get their staff “on board” so they continue to be upbeat with customers.

• Employees need to be oriented as to what is available in downtown New Albany. A New Albany directory needs to be distributed to each business. DNA has already produced a map of downtown businesses which is going into its second printing.

• Service at our restaurants needs to be top-notch to keep people coming back.

• Produce something—possibly on DNA web page—highlighting various merchants.

• Create a t-shirt using the theme “I survived the Sherman Minton Bridge Closing”. Use the tag line “We are surviving” in various ways.

• DNA can be used as a clearinghouse to create links to all the business websites.

• Businesses were encouraged to keep their normal business hours, not panic or shift hours around.

• Utilize the TV morning shows to get the word out.

The meeting was extremely upbeat. Carl Malysz said it all when he expressed the following:

NEW ALBANY IS CONVENIENT, ECONOMICAL, NOT CONGESTED. NOTHING HAS CHANGED AND WE CONTINUE TO HAVE GREAT RESTAURANTS AND MANY BUSINESSES WHICH OFFER SERVICES THE PUBLIC NEEDS1

A follow-up meeting will be held at the Grand Theater next Tuesday, September 19, at 8:00 a.m.

The Creamer Theorem: Is there any reason for this being part of the smoking debate?

That is, apart from shameless (read: irrelevant) propaganda value?

This one really baffles me. Like a can of light beer, it’s an example of something that may seem significant at first glance, but doesn’t survive scrutiny (or, in light beer’s case, actually swallowing the insipid liquid). As a prelude to what follows, I know who Gary Creamer is, but I don’t know him personally.

New Albany mayor urged to sign smoking ban, by Dick Kaukas (C-J).

Gary Creamer, a New Albany resident, said the city is losing restaurant business because residents have so few smoke-free places to go for meals.

Creamer said he and a group of friends eat together once a week and spend $17,000 to $20,000 annually. He said he and his friends have gone to New Albany restaurants only twice during the past year because so few are smoke-free.

Admittedly, that’s a lot of money to pump into Little Chef’s coffers, given that it might be the very last restaurant hereabouts that doesn’t actually have a non-smoking seating area. There may be others, but of course the obvious question is this:

Given Gary Creamer's eagerness to publicly advertise the amount of money that his group withholds from still-smoky New Albany restaurants, are those establishments really the sort of place that Creamer’s party wants to be seen patronizing?

Consequently, it seems fair to ask why on earth Gary Creamer and Company’s discretionary spending habits have been made part of this noble campaign to protect workplace health?

Is there even the remotest connection between worker safety and conspicuous consumption of this sort?

I’m searching in vain for a causal relationship, and I’m open to assistance in locating it. Surely it’s fair to ask: Where and to whom is Creamer’s party constrained from transferring wealth because of second hand smoke? To put it bluntly, if Little Chef suddenly was smoke-free, would Creamer's party be dropping dollars therein?

And: Isn’t is somehow unseemly that even the ban’s proponents can’t stick to their own magic bullet of science, and must instead hoist an example of personal preference for us to lacerate?

Why again is it that in the midst of scrum of this magnitude, political interpretations are somehow off limits to contrarians?

I’ll have more to say a bit later on that particular angle.

Good news from City Hall: Silver Street supporters, New Albany's mayor join forces.

Silver Street supporters, New Albany's mayor join forces, by Tara Hettinger (News-Tribune).

On Monday, New Albany Mayor Doug England told a group of concerned parents and community members — who are fighting to keep Silver Street Elementary open — that he understands the importance of being able to walk to school.

He did just that as a child … (and) England told the group he is in favor of keeping the school open, because it encourages walkers and helps to define the area.“The school is the heart of the neighborhood and if you take the heart away, the neighborhood just dies,” England said.

I’m delighted to see Mayor England involved in this unfolding story.

It’s hard to imagine a public entity playing its hand any more ineptly than the school corporation has managed to date, with its imported hatchet-wielding consultant, rubber-stamp “cover” committee designed for no other reason than to ultimately take the fall, and a penchant for secrecy that’s positively Nixonian in scope.

Toss into the mix a school board member or two whose prime mandate seems to be sticking it to “them people” downtown (if Linden Meadows were a tune, I'd be humming it), and we’re approaching a readymade Mel Brooks comedic epic – except that the more one considers it, the story isn’t funny, and even the addition of a flatulent campfire scene out behind the administration building wouldn’t make it so.

I’ll say it again: I have friends in the school corporation, and it pains me to note their employer’s stance in this matter. At this point, it isn’t just that the validity of the Superintendent’s pre-determined course of school resource “action” is questionable. It’s that the method pursued in achieving it is bordering on the reprehensible.

That’s very alarming.

The invisible hand: Is there such a thing in New Albany?

On Friday, I wrote:

Even if local newspapers won't be what I'd like them to be, there isn't much I can do about it, and while I remain intrigued by the possibilities of blogs and blogging, my profession is beer, not journalism. Mind you, there is no desire here to forsake the editorial soapbox with regard to local politics and civic affairs; rather, there's a desire to place these into an overall context, and one way to do that is to continue writing and trusting my own instincts when it comes to what might be interesting for readers.

As you might imagine, I’m speaking of the Tribune as the journalistic entity in question.

While the case can be made, and I agree with it, that the newspaper is far better than it was before the current management team came aboard, the fact that it spent the month of December steadfastly refusing to touch the 1SI/ROCK story that we chased here for more than a month, choosing instead to do things like devote today’s front page to the story of how a family of west end hillbillies are quartering a horse in their undersized backyard, tells you much of what you need to know about the paper’s ongoing failure – not a failure to improve overall, and not a failure to generate worthy content, but a failure to institute a substantive editorial policy, something that I vaguely recall the publisher vowing would occur before the end of 2006.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

Of course, in New Albanian terms, being just a year late is tantamount to finishing far ahead of schedule. That’s how we tell time in the land that its citizens seem to have forgotten.

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Not unexpectedly, my only New Year’s “resolution” that has a chance of success in 2008 is to become less reticent about telling the world what I really think.

Scary, eh?

Knowing that it stands to mightily annoy the trogs is reward enough for persevering, don't you think?

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Having weathered the lengthy period required to have 1SI publicly concede my point about slippery slopes (acidly: did I remember to thank the Tribune for its help in achieving this?), I remain a board member of Develop New Albany, a non-profit organization that exists to assist in the rehabilitation of downtown New Albany in the context of precepts espoused by the national Main Street group.

I write the newsletter, and my committee assignment is Economic Restructuring. At one lunch meeting roughly six months ago, a discussion was held pertaining to the ways that Develop New Albany might help small business people downtown succeed. The give and take was valuable, and many fine ideas were advanced by the participants, and yet it occurred to me at some point that much of what we were saying was largely irrelevant, in the sense that if an entrepreneur needs to be educated about certain realities only after he or she has invested in a small business, it’s probably too late to be of any real help. Rather, it becomes sink-or-swim time.

I don’t mean for this to sound harsh, and permit me to stress that my thoughts are not being aimed in any specific direction or toward any individual, but after a while it just becomes surreal to fathom that retail establishments (for instance) must be counseled to do things like hold to consistent opening hours, to not try to be everything to everyone, and to know something about the potential market for their products.

It seems axiomatic to me that if you want to run a successful coffee shop (for instance), the absolute founding principle must be superior knowledge of coffee and the desire that your coffee is the best it can possibly be, as well as the recognition that if your doors are locked, customers cannot spend their money with you, and yet time and again we see that folks willing to stake it all on a dream don't even have that much of the fundamental mission statement in line.

So, I’ve spent chunks of time for more than a year earnestly attempting to make examples like this clear, and seeking to pass along some of what I’ve learned from 15 years of running my own business. More often than not, it is though I’m speaking a foreign language. Why seek advice if you have no intention of profiting from it? Forget me for a moment: Isn't it the case that merely observing a successful business and taking notes might lead to worthwhile insights, and to reforms that might push the endeavor over the top?

It is not my preference to shrug and permit marketplace Darwinism to run its inevitable course without at least trying to be of service … but I’m almost forced to do so in the absence of comprehension, so allow me to conclude by saying this: I believe that the coming year will be pivotal in terms of small business in downtown New Albany, and that it also might well be the perfect chance for savvy opportunists (don't worry; they're out there), to make the necessary market corrections. There’ll be steps backward, but there’ll also be steps forward.

Stay alert. Things may soon be getting quite interesting.

Keeping it simple can be inordinately complex.

A New York Times article I was reading over coffee and kippers made reference to “Occam’s razor,” a term with which I’m familiar owing to studies in philosophy – although a refresher course never hurts, especially 25 years and a few thousand beers later.

Take it away, Wikipedia:

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Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off," those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.

The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of succinctness"): entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates to: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

This is often paraphrased as "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as a heuristic maxim that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity in scientific theories.

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No mention of politics here, perhaps because there is no simplicity to be found in its pursuit.

Or is there?

The Bolovschak phenomenon: A nod's still as good as a wink to a blind voter.

Did you know to whom I refer in the title before looking at the photo? Surely she’s the only candidate in recent memory to seek local office sans surname, which points to one of several contradictory aspects of Main Street Bed & Breakfast owner Valla Ann Bolovschak’s bid for an at-large seat on the city council.

Historically, New Albany’s voters have shown considerable reluctance to turn the calendar page forward -- and that's putting it mildly. Surely there have been exceptions (Regina Overton comes immediately to mind), but partisan municipal voters seldom have been keen on Republicans in general, on women running for big ticket offices like mayor or city council, or on people with seemingly unpronounceable “foreign” names – like Bolovschak.

Not unexpectedly, it has been an obvious imperative from the very start that Ms. Bolovschak’s political brand identity must consistently and repetitiously be pegged to her forenames, and moreover, that her fervent GOP leanings in the broader state and national senses be somewhat muted locally in favor of a universal populist message capable of being appreciated by the dull mass of primarily Democratic voters, who otherwise might be frightened even if they’ve bought into her familiar “Jimmy G – You Work for Me” stratagem.

Many of them are going to be surprised on Tuesday when they declare Democratic allegiance and find Ms. Bolovschak’s name missing from the list. Here’s a clue: Think pachyderm, even if it isn’t indicated on the yard signs.

Barely concealed slash ‘n’ burn alliances of purely Machiavellian convenience with nominal Democrats like the Freedom to Screech blog’s cowardly and trognonymous Vicki Denhart have been undertaken with the intent of lowering cultural resistance from older female voters, while at the same time not directly implicating Ms. Bolovschak in the slanderous mayhem foisted on the public by the embittered professorial wannabe.

Of course, we live in a spittle-obsessed America, and photogenic good looks are never a bad strategy to win over undecided and sexually frustrated older males.

Undoubted ability doesn’t hurt, either, and virtually no one – even the author – contests the fact that Ms. Bolovschak possesses reams of useful business experience of the sort generally lacking on the council. She also has useful connections in a state dominated by the Republican Party (see “spittle”, above).

By positioning herself more than three years ago as an entity approximating that of a shadow city government, Ms. Bolovschak has worked behind the scenes on a number of issues, some of broad usefulness to the community in general (railroads and the Greenway – that’s “green-a-way” for those Steve Price voters reading), and others undertaken for puzzlingly less reputable motives (taking a lead role in financing and leading the attempt to scuttle the worthy Linden Meadows low-income home ownership project).

Through it all, I’ve formulated a cautionary dictum: You’re free to take Ms. Bolovschak at face value so long as you understand that there are multiple faces, ones deployed at different times to different people, and for different reasons.

The do-gooder or the narcissist?

The savvy negotiator or the scheming character assassin?

Defender of the downtrodden, or cynical manipulator of the White Castle-eating noodleheads?

She’s been all of these things at various junctures during a carefully orchestrated period of political ascendancy. One must understand from the outset that hers is not a candidacy built for transparency, but rather a Rove-influenced shell game intended to take advantage of what she perceives as weaknesses of perception and intellect on the part of a bickering yokel populace.

Sadly, she may even be right when it come to the latter assessment, with implications even more disturbing than her tactics to date. Indeed, it’s sometimes hard not to admire hardcore realism even as the rancid stench of abhorrent methodology send you running in search of a convenient bucket.

Will Ms. Bolovschak successfully charm the somnolent GOP urban cadres and rise to the top three on the GOP at-large council ballot? It seems like a reasonable prospect, although inexplicable local proclivities for self-defeating xenophobia can never be entirely dismissed.

One thing is clear: Aficionados of governmental gridlock may think that the current council offers the ideal components for a profound lack of progressive movement … but what if Ms. Bolovschak and a handful of newly elected fellow council Republicans face off for four long years against a second-term Mayor James Garner – with obstructionist “Democrats” in tow?

It’s a scenario that would make the siege of Troy seem like an adolescent’s attention span, redolent of the nothingness of wheels spinning in deep mud or the lonesome yelp of starved puppies chained behind slumlord properties.


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As an addendum, here is a comment previously posted as a comment by reader All4Word on Thursday, May 3.

Ms. Bolovschak continues to boast that she has personally paid for the videography of city council meetings, but something remains unsaid, at least recently.

Upon my earliest acquaintance with the now-candidate, I extracted a pledge from her. That is a pledge that was given, but not fulfilled.

Not everyone in New Albany has cable TV, so even if the school system (the owner of the cable station) were willing to give up part of its educational programming time to government meetings, many still would not be able to access them.

So I asked Ms. Bolovschak to promise that she would deposit copies of the tapes in the public library. She did promise, but she never came through.

It is the height of Rove-ian politicking to boast about privately taping city council meetings without making those tapes available to the public. Much in the same way that she claims to be on the board of Historic Landmarks (we're members, and we can't find any list that includes her), the claim and the underlying truth are at variance.

Indeed, there is a cost to tape the meetings. But there's a cost to driving a Ferrari (or a golf cart), too. But if that Ferrari isn't being driven for the benefit of the public, it hardly counts as a legitimate campaign selling point.

Voters should know that videotaping of city council meetings would not go "poof" if Ms. Bolovschak were to stop taping. Others stand ready to underwrite those costs, but they are committed to making them publicly available, not to secreting them in a boudoir for private viewing.

Thanks to NAC for the recent efforts to bring visual representation to what this blog has been saying for more than three years now. Yesterday the word "unbelievable" was bandied about in regard to the 3rd District candidate forum/debate. Unfortunately, it is all too believable.

Would that those videos were available to all.

Photo credit: B52s